


De Souza’s

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunkenness, Gentleness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Touch-Starved, Wing Grooming, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:17:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: “Why are you being strange about it, angel? Nothing wrong with human indulgence. Just wondered, that’s all.”“I started going when we had those ridiculous side burns and just liked it. That’s all.”Aziraphale believed that he would sound convincing if he didn’t have a tremor in his voice.





	De Souza’s

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I’m going to write something light and fluffy about Aziraphale’s barber! 
> 
> Also me: Writes this

It was, for a long time, the only place that Aziraphale really liked to go in Heaven. All angels had to go there at some time or another, even Gabriel and Michael for all they pretended that they were superior. But they did. They needed their wings tended just the same as everyone else. 

It was a quick job, but he enjoyed it all the same. Ruffled, untidy wings were uncomfortable, and the angels who specialised in grooming them had quick and clever fingers. 

But then the war happened, and the Heavenly host split, and suddenly there wasn’t time for the indulgence of grooming anymore. Not for anyone really, although a lot of the remaining angels made their own arrangements to help one another in private. Down on Earth, away from his brethren, Aziraphale just…fell out of the habit. He did what he could himself and that was just fine. He wouldn’t want any old angel touching him anyway.

*

“Mr Fell, you’re back very soon!”

Aziraphale smiled at the boy, who was clutching a brush in his hands. He remembered when the barber shuffling around behind the counter had been the boy with the brush, and his grandfather the barber. Goodness, it really had been a long time.

“I’m just so terribly lazy, Richard dear,” Aziraphale told the boy, as he was settled in a chair and Richard tossed the cape around his neck. “I’d much rather have your grandfather deal with it all for me.”

Richard chuckled and clicked his tongue. He was a good boy. Brash, like all youths seemed to be since ‘teenagers’ had been invented, and he spent far too long on his mobile telephone, but he helped his grandfather and was never too haughty for a smile. 

Aziraphale had been attending this barber since – well, since Marco was Richard’s age. It was risky, he supposed, to interact with the same humans for so long a time, but the family really were at the top of their profession. It was no hardship for Aziraphale to just – show them what they expected to see. A frivolous use of miracles, maybe, but no one had pulled him up on it and it was really so hard to find a good old fashioned barber these days. 

Besides, he might also have told a little white lie and said he was his own son, to smooth over the gaps. 

“Mr Fell, always so lovely to see you in my chair.”

Marco was an old man now, but his hands were as steady as they had always been. He rested them on Aziraphale’s shoulders and grinned at him in the mirror.

“The pleasure is all mine, as always.”

Strictly speaking, Aziraphale neither grew facial hair or ever needed a haircut, but since he’d worn sideburns to suit the nineteenth century fashion, he found that he rather liked going to have them tended. It was rather comforting. So he kept at it, manifesting facial hair and willing his hair longer whenever he felt like visiting his friends the De Souzas. 

“Just the normal?” Marco asked, carding his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair.

“Oh yes, thank you.”

The ritual was a very calming one. Marco would rinse his hair and take out his scissors, and Richard would bring Aziraphale a cup of tea whilst his grandfather tidied up the angel’s hair. They would talk a little, and it would all be very soothing.

“Lovely weather this week,” Marco said, drawing Aziraphale’s curls through his fingers and snipping at them with a speed that seemed to defy human abilities.

“Very nice. I do enjoy walking in the parks. Feeding the ducks.”

“I like ducks,” Marco mused. “Funny birds. You know they say bread is bad for them.”

“I’d heard. We feed them lettuce now. Much better for them.”

“We? Who is your friend?”

“Oh, just a friend, yes,” Aziraphale paused, unsure why he was hesitating. “Um, Anthony. You’d like him, he’s very stylish. Much more than I am.”

Marco laughed and wiggled his eyebrows in the mirror. 

“I never said that. I tell all my other customers, Mr Fell is my favourite. Takes pride in his appearance, comes to see me more than any of them.”

“Flatterer,” Aziraphale murmured, as Marco finished the hair trim with the errant curls on the back of his neck. The barber’s weathered hands were always rough on the soft skin, but Aziraphale rather enjoyed the sensation. It reminded him – well, he just enjoyed it.

Richard came dancing over with a hot towel, which he laid on Aziraphale’s face, then went back for the razor and the strap. Marco always made a show of sharpening it, as though it wasn’t plain to see that it was kept just about as sharp as a cut throat razor could be.

Hopping to something in his headphones, Richard removed the towel and smeared the shaving cream all over Aziraphale’s face. He was so young. Marco had been that young once. Sometimes, humans made Aziraphale feel very very old.

“Okay, you ready?” Marco asked. Aziraphale nodded, and settled back in the chair. This was the part he had always enjoyed the most. Marco’s grandfather, Robert, had always liked to show off, give a shave at speed, but Marco always did a slower, gentler job. Aziraphale didn’t go in for sideburns these days, so Marco could be thorough. 

The razor skimmed over his cheeks and Aziraphale closed his eyes. No wonder humans enjoyed it so much.

“Your friend, Anthony. You should bring him here, if he likes to look good. First one free for Mr Fell’s friend.”

Aziraphale couldn’t reply, so he made a noise in the back of his throat. He wasn’t sure Crowley would appreciate it. He wasn’t as keen on human indulgence as Aziraphale.

“You know, he’s the first person you ever mentioned to me. In all these years.”

Aziraphale made another noise. Marco so did like to gossip. 

The old man laughed as though he had spoken aloud, and finished off the shave in an expectant silence. Aziraphale felt himself being keenly watched, and wasn’t sure he liked the sensation. He’d never been fond of this human blush that coloured his cheeks. It seemed far too revelatory. 

“Anthony is a very dear friend,” he said primly. “If I’ve never mentioned him, it’s because you’ve never asked.”

Marco grinned and patted Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

“I have a new cologne. You want to try it?”

Ah, this was much more familiar territory. Marco had been giving him samples of such things to try for many years, some more successful than others. Aziraphale was always glad to try them. Some of scents were just scrummy.

Richard took the money that Aziraphale conjured up from behind his ear, and grinned like hadn’t seen the trick a hundred times. 

“Keep the change, my dear,” Aziraphale waved him away. “And I’ll see you both very soon.”

“Bye bye, Mr Fell,” Marco put an arm around Richard’s shoulders. “Remember, first shave free for Mr Anthony.”

Aziraphale shook his head. Marco was such an old maid when it came to gossip. 

*

“Angel?” 

Crowley was hanging upside down off the edge of the sofa, glasses falling over his forehead as he fixed his gaze on Aziraphale. For his own part, Aziraphale had to concentrate to locate the mouth on the upside down face.

“Yes?”

“Why d’you go to a barber?”

“…Pardon?”

“Something you said, ‘bout your cologne. Barber. Your barber gave it to you. But why’d you go to a barber? We don’t grow hair.”

They were, both of them, spectacularly drunk. Two weeks since the end of the world that wasn’t, and they’ve mostly been celebrating since then. Well, since they fooled the offices into leaving them alone. Aziraphale wasn’t sure that Crowley had been home in days.

“I didn’t say anything about my barber.”

“Not now,” Crowley waves his hand vaguely. “Weeks ago. Before the thing – the thing. You know.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale tried to remember mentioning it, and failed. He was far too drunk to remember things. It seemed Crowley wasn’t, unfortunately.

“I just like going. A human indulgence, I know. But a very lovely one.”

“Huh,” Crowley says, flipping himself up and grabbing a half empty bottle from the forest of empty bottles. “You’re lyin’. Can always tell.”

Even in the drink addled parts of his brain, Aziraphale knew that wasn’t true. He and Crowley had been lying to one another for years. Decades. Centuries. He decided not to say that. 

“Gonna sober up,” Crowley said unexpectedly.

“Yes, me too.” It would be much safer to have conversations like this with all his faculties about him. 

“Tea?” he asked, when he could safely stand. Crowley nodded, straightening his sunglasses. But if Aziraphale thought he could avoid the conversation by going to the kitchen he was mistaken, because Crowley followed him. Aziraphale felt crowded by his presence and pressed himself up against the worktop. 

“Why are you being strange about it, angel? Nothing wrong with human indulgence. Just wondered, that’s all.” Crowley didn’t move any closer to him. Like he could tell Aziraphale was uncomfortable. But he also didn’t leave. 

“I started going when we had those ridiculous side burns and just liked it. That’s all.”

Aziraphale believed that he would sound convincing if he didn’t have a tremor in his voice. He gripped the handle of the kettle, waiting for it to boil.

“I did my sideburns myself,” Crowley mused. “Always do my own hair too.”

“Yes, I know. Just silly of me.”

“Not silly,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale could hear the shrug in his voice. “If you like human hands on you, then you do you.”

Aziraphale was sure that he was going to faint, although he didn’t know if his body was actually capable of doing that. But his head was spinning, and he couldn’t lift the kettle for fear of dropping it. 

“Angel?”

_Did he have to sound so concerned?_

“It reminds me,” Aziraphale said, through clenched teeth, because this was Crowley and he didn’t want to lie anymore. “Having my hair touched. It reminds me of before the war, when – we could have our wings groomed. Do you remember?”

“Oh.” Crowley appeared at Aziraphale’s elbow, glasses firmly in place. “I do remember. But – angel, someone has groomed your wings since the war, right?”

“And if they hadn’t?”

After a moment in which the only sound was water being poured into cups, Crowley sighed. 

“Oh, Aziraphale. Really? No one?”

Aziraphale couldn’t answer him. He was trembling, and water spilled over the worktop as he tried to put down the kettle. It sounded – to admit it, to hear it in someone’s voice and that voice to be Crowley’s, when he’d tried so hard to hide it all this time. He felt tears, rarely shed by this form, pricking at his eyes and he put his face in his hands. 

“Even demons help each other out, angel,” Crowley said, so gentle, and rested a tentative hand, even gentler, on Aziraphale’s shoulder. It went through him like an electric shock. Crowley didn’t touch him like this. He never had. Aziraphale couldn’t breathe, and he curled his fingers into his forehead. 

“Didn’t trust anyone. Not – none of them. Up there.”

The tea was long forgotten, stewing in the cups, as Crowley turned Aziraphale to face him. He took Aziraphale’s wrists and lowered his hands from his face. Thank goodness he was still wearing his glasses, because if Aziraphale had been looking into his eyes he would have started crying for real. Of that he was sure.

“Do you trust me?”

He nodded. God, yes. 

“I bet it’s a nightmare back there,” Crowley wrapped his arms tentatively around Aziraphale’s shoulders and held him to his chest. It was warm and safe, and if Aziraphale wasn’t about to start weeping, he’d have asked Crowley to kiss him. But there was a lump high in his throat and he couldn’t speak, so he relented and fell into Crowley’s embrace, because God, no one had asked in so long how he felt about anything. Let alone the state of his wings. 

“I’m going to tidy you up,” Crowley murmured into his hair. “If you will let me.”

They ended up in the back room and Aziraphale manifested his wings, and Crowley tutted softly. But only softly, like he thought Aziraphale would break at the slightest show of disapproval. And as he started combing through, his fingers so gentle even as they plucked out broken feathers, and he ran his hands soothingly over the sensitive skin that Aziraphale could never quite reach on his own, the angel found that he could break anyway. 

He wept until Crowley finished the job and then the demon couldn’t stand the sound anymore, so he manifested his own wings and pulled Aziraphale to him, wrapping them around them both as Aziraphale clung to him on the sofa. 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale muttered, when he found he could breathe again. 

“Any time you need it, angel. _Any time.”_


End file.
